Bumbling agents secretly lose on purpose...

Another day dawns and shatters another illusion as it does so. This time, it's our overly romantic ideas regarding espionage that have taken a bit of a bruising - especially our secretly-held belief that those working for the MoD or other Government defense agencies really are as suave and as astute as the movies may have made us believe. Indeed, if today's reports are anything to go by, it seems that the reality of the situation is that the average protector of national security is about as sharp as a flat chest and as close to clued-in as Milton Keynes is to Heaven. That's right: they've lost their 'secret' files again. *Yawn*

We're sure that you've already read in most of today's papers that, whilst all the regular members of society were getting on with their crossword puzzles or crawling through the latest Richard and Judy best-seller, an 'unnamed' Cabinet Officer was reading top-secret and epoch defining terrorist files on the rush hour train. Unfortunately, for the rest of us god-fearing citizens, he or she then forgot to take these documents when alighting and left them on the seat. Due to the frequency with which this kind of security breach seems to be happening though, we have to ask: are the people in charge really this stupid? Or are they doing it on purpose?

The news comes after April's revelation that some other government dunce lost his secret laptop in McDonalds (the only way 'Big Mac' would make it's way into a Connery era Bond is if that was the villain's name), other computers were stolen in April, and that yet another was 'left' in the back of a taxi cab prior to this. Of course, there's always a chance that this is happening because of misfortune, or even ineptitude, but this seems highly unlikely considering the lengths that the MoD or whoever else have previously been seen to go to in order to keep a secret - murdering Russians, manipulating the news, etc. Which means that we can only assume that these files are being placed in public view on purpose.

The idea is not as wild-eyed as it might sound: Every time these files are leaked it manages to make its way into the newspapers, with at least some hint of the contents being revealed at the same time. By reporting these things in the media as being secret, the incident serves to either attract attention to an issue or take it away from another.

"When a fellow passenger saw the material inside the envelope, they gave it to the BBC." Says the BBC's report.

But perhaps that's because that was what was supposed to happen...

Written by Oli Anderson on 12 Jun 2008 11:50 AM. Permalink